LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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A DDRESS 



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THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE. 



TlIK LATE FHAUDS 



]>i;i;im: ii; \ r 



:lection 



Held oik the 7lN \<i\fml)ti. I S53, 



ADDRESS 



CHARLES GAYARRE, 

I) 



THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE. 



y. 



THE LATE FRAUDS 
PERPETRATED AT THE ELECTION 

Hold on the 7tli November, 1893, 



IN THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS. 



/: 



S NEW OK M:aNS: 

MIINTKD BY SIIEKMAN k WHAKTON, 
ys Camp Rlroet. 

18 5 3. 



^1> 



TO THE PEOPLE 



OP 



THE STATE OF LOUISIANA. 



Oil the Ibtli of Septcinbcr lust, I autliorizcd some of tlic public 
journals in the city of New Orleans to announce me as an inde- 
pendent candidate to represent in Congress the first Congressional 
District of the Stati-. 

In my address, of the same date, to the voters of that District, 
I explained the causes Avliich, in my opinion, had compelled me 
to take that position, and I used these observations amouo; others: 
"It may be asserted, ivithoutfear of contradiction^ to be the gen- 
eral and deeply rooted belief, that, in the first congressional dis- 
trict, no one has a chance of being the nominee of any conven- 
tion, unless he be sup])orted by about fifteen or twenty individuals 
who compose, it is said, an irresistible oligarchy of leaders, and 
unless, to secure a majority in the convention, he should resort to 
such means as would altogether be inconsistent with that loftiness 
of mind which must characterize the man Avorthy of being your 
representative in Congress. Be this belief well founded or not, it 
is undeniable that ii is universal, and hence the necessity of its 
being taken into consideration by me." Let it be remarked that 
these broad and public assertions stood uncontradicted, either by 
the press, or by any other authority. The fact is, that it was 
impossible not to admit truths which were as clearly revealed to 
all as is the light of tlie sun, and the conse(|uence was, that, with 
the approbation of some of our most distinguished democrats, who 
have ever been unimpcached and are unimpeacliablc both in their 
public and private life, I positively refused to allow my name to be 
submitted to the Convention, and to abide by its decision, despite 
of the most earnest entreaties, and of the most solemn assm'ances 
that care should be taken to send such delegates to the Convention 
as would secure my nomination by that body. These entreaties 
and assurances could, of course, but confirm me in the conviction, 
that there was only one honorable course to pursue — that of 
making a direct appeal to the people — as I did. 

The Convention met under these peculiar circumstances of sus- 
picion, and nominated Judge Dunbar as the candidate, in the first 
District, for congressional honors. The people were taken by 
surprise — so much so, that one of the democratic papers of the city, 
whose editors arc known to be the nominee's personal friends, 



could not but observe : " how the judge came to be nominated is a 
puzzle.'" And was not, indeed, that nomination a jmszle to the 
people of that district ? Who Avas Judge Dunbar, and what were 
the merits that recommended him to the choice, or even to the 
notice of the Convention ? I wish to speak tenderly of that gen- 
tleman, but the necessity of the case compels me to be accurate in 
the sketch I must draw, in order that the logic of my argument 
should derive its main force from the imdisputed evidence of the 
facts ; and should no perfumed drop of courteous praise, so grati- 
fying to the cravings of self love, be observed to drip from the 
close analysis I undertake, I hope it will not be attributed to any 
malignity of disposition on my part, or to the want of a proper 
desire to find out the required ingredient, but to the dry sterility 
of the subject. 

When it was announced that Mr. Dunbar Avas the nominee of 
the Convention, a few individuals remembered that he had come to 
New Orleans some twenty years ago, and had plodded so obscurely 
at the bar that he had found it to his interest to remove to the 
Parish of Rapides, as a smaller theatre where his aspirations would 
be less obstructed by competition. I have an indistinct recollec- 
tion that, from that remote section of the State, he was, once or 
twice, sent to the Legislature, then sitting in New Orleans ; but 
the part which he acted in that body failed to awaken public atten- 
tion, and it would require very active researches to discover, within 
the breadth and length of the first Congressional District, one 
solitary individual who could say, that to him the legislator had 
not remained as unknown as the lawyer. Such was the compass 
of the distinction acquired by Mr. Dunbar, when, on the 9th of 
July, 1852, he was appointed to fill a vacancy which had occurred 
on the Supreme Bench of tlie State by the death of Judge Preston 
of the Parish of Jefferson. The court was then composed of four 
members, and the three otiier incumbents were Judge Eustis and 
Judge Slidell of New Orleans, and Judge Rost of the Parish of 
St. Charles. Thus all these Judges were from New Orleans, or 
from its immediate vicinity. No one who is acquainted with the 
power of sectional feelings and with the intensity of that jealousy 
"which is said to exist between the lower and upper parishes of the 
State, will, for a single moment, suppose that Governor Walker, 
of the Parish of Rapides in the Red River District, could have 
selected the fourth judge again from the same favored territorial 
circumscription. It was evident that there was some other portion 
of the State entitled to be represented on the Bench, and Governor 
Walker acted with propriety, when in the person of Mr. Dunbar, 
he, on the 9th of July, 1852, selected, as the successor of Judge 
Preston, an individual who was looked upon as a denizen of the 
Parish of Rapides. 

This is confirmed by the course subsequently pursued by Judge 



Dunbar. On the olst of July of tlio s;mie year, anew Constitu- 
tion was adopted for the State of Louisiana. The article G4 of 
that instrument, says; The Chief JuHtice ahall be elected by the 
qwillfu'd eh'ctors of the State. The Lerjislature shall divide the 
State into four Districts, and the qualijied electors of each district 
shall elect one of the Associate Justices. Tlic obvious intention of 
the framers of the Constitution was, to afford the opportunity, 
tliat every Judicial District be represented on the Bench by an 
individual connected with that district by the ties of sectionality 
and locality. Can it bo supposed that, of all the candidates for 
judicial honors, Mr. Dunbar would have been the only one who 
would not have thouglit it a glaring impropriety, or at least a 
hazardous experiment, to run, out of the district to which he really 
belonged '/ And had he been domiciliated, or known to be domi- 
ciliated in New Orleans, would ho have felt justified in soliciting 
the suffrages of that portion of the State most remote from the 
city, and to which ho is now said to have, for some time past, pre- 
ferred it, as a more eligible residence and as a place of more 
refined social enjoyment ? If he had not been looked upon as 
having, in reality, all his interests and affections in the Parish of 
Rapides, and as being a Red River man, would he have been so 
handsomely voted for in the region which he is alleged to have 
deserted ? Can j\Ir, Dunbar conscientiously believe, that had 
he been a New Orleans man, and had he been the most distin- 
guished jurisconsult that ever existed within its limits, he would 
have been supported at all in the 4th Judicial District, as a 
candidate for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court ? Nay — 
Avould he himself have ventured to come out as a candidate ? The 
conclusion is inevitable, that, on the 4th of April, 1853, when the 
election took place, i\Ir. Dunbar must have been believed, or must 
have represented himself, as being identified with the 4th District, 
and not at all with the 1st, within which lies so considerable a part 
of the city of New Orleans. 

Mr. Dunbar was not elected to the Bench, but, under the ap- 
pointment given him by Governor Walker, administered justice 
as one of the Supreme Judges, from the first Monday of Novem- 
ber, 1852, to the 20th of April, 1853. lie performed these func- 
tions in the 1st District, and they did not make him more exten- 
sively known therein, personally, or as a judge, than he had been 
as a lawyer or as a legislator. As he had the reputation of pos- 
sessing talent, it Avas expected that, during the six months he 
acted as judge, he would have grasped at some opportunity of dis- 
playing, in some important legal decision, the so far concealed 
treasures of a powerful mind. But, generally, he remained satis- 
fied with moilestly concurring in the opinion of his colleagues, and 
the few judgments which he delivered are neither remarkable for 
any profundity of learning nor any elegance of diction. 



Before ascending the bench, it is said that Mr. Dunbar had, for 
some time past, resumed his profession at the New Orleans bar. 
But it is very difficult to ascertain the correctness of this assertion, 
in as much as, among the numerous jurors who attend our District 
Courts, none have as yet been discovered who ever heard the sound 
of his voice in any case at all, and his name never or seldom ap- 
pears on any of the dockets of those courts, or of the Supreme 
Court ; and, wliatever may be his talents, I certainly shall not be 
contradicted by the bar, nor by the public, when I affirm, that he 
kept them roosting to his breast, and did not permit the eaglets 
to fly from their nest. Oi)scure as a lawyer, in the first district at 
least, and not more conspicuous as a judge, he kept himself in the 
same glimmering twilight as a politician — so much so — that, before 
his nomination by a Democratic convention, it Vv'as known only to 
a few individuals that he had, not long since, belonged to the 
AVhig party. Nor can it be received as an evidence of the posses- 
sion of any great intellectual faculties, that the professional gen- 
tleman I speak of should have lived about twenty years in the 
midst of a French population, without having, not by study, or 
any mental effort, but merely by the natural process of assimila- 
tion, or accretion, acquired some knowledge of their language. 
Admitting that, on that point, the promptings of interest Avere 
never felt, or that the antipathies of taste, or the wayv/ardness of 
inclination were more readily consulted, yet it is evident that the 
common observation, that a capacious mind draws within itself, 
by the very law of its organization, and on the principle of at- 
traction, every sort of knowledge which may be within its reach, 
is not applicable to Judge Dunbar. 

So far as it can be ascertained, Jud2;e Dunbar never was 
known to raise his voice, in the 1st District, in favor of the De- 
mocratic party in any popular assembly, nor has it been possible 
to discover, whether the judge had at least, and in the last resort, 
thought of possessing something in common with his fellow citi- 
zens of the 1st District, by having consented to make some invest- 
ment therein, and thereby sharing with them the burden of taxa- 
tion with Avhich they ore crushed. I am also compelled by the 
drift of my argument to remark, that the judge appears to be of 
a retired and saturnine disposition, and that, previous to his nom- 
ination by the late Convention, he was not known, even by sight, 
to one out of a hundred of his present constituents, and, therefore, 
could not have been picked by the Convention on account of his 
availability and his possession of 2^c^so7ial 2yo2mlarity, Nay — so 
little known was he in every way, that, when he suddenly emerged 
as a candidate from the Avomb of the Convention, the question 
was seriously raised whether he was domiciliated in the 1st Dis- 
trict ; and it could be answered by no body, except the editor of 
the Louisiana Courier, who favored us with the information, that 



the judge rented a furnished room in Dauphine street in the first 
District, and took his meals at tlie St. Charles in the second, and 
thus occupied a dubious position of equilibration, or of suspension, 
like Mahomet's coffin between heaven and earth — so that those 
■who were not familiar with the provisions of our laws which refru- 
late a man's domicil, were as sadly puzzled in relation to this 
matter, as they had been about the cause of the judge's nomina- 
tion. Was the (|uestion to be decided by the 1)cd, or by tlie board? 
Which was the more important function — that of taking nutrition, 
or resting in sweet oblivion of the cares of existence ? Whatever 
be the requirements of our code on the subject, one thing is cer- 
tain, that, if the judge lived Avith us, it was mostly during that 
portion of tlie day Avhen the consciousness of self is lost, and that 
this circumstance could not but rul) off some of the merit of the 
intended compliment, particularly whilst it is remembered that he 
preferred the 2d District, at those hours when he resume<l the 
energies and the enjoyments of life. 

Tiie object of the preceding statement is not to produce any 
feeling of mortification any where, but to demonstrate, that Mr. 
Dunbar had not the slightest claims to be even thought of by the 
Convention, either on the ground of personal popularity, or any 
manifestation of talent, or the possession of interests and affec- 
tions in common with the people of the 1st District, who could not 
therefore but be puzzled at the honor conferred upon him by that 
body. Next came the natural and ineyitable inquiry into the 
secret motives which must have operated upon the Convention, 
since there were no apparent reasons for the course it had pursued ; 
and the impression that finally kept hold of the public mind con- 
vinced me that I was right, Avhcn I declared, that none could be 
the nominee of that convention, under the existing circumstances, 
without subjecting himself to imputations of a disgraceful natm'C. 
Thus Mr. Dunbar, much to his annoyance no doubt, and perhaps 
without any fault of his, was generally considered as the nominee 
of a dique or olifiarchy^ and not of the i^xirty, and the belief 
spread far and Avide, that he Avas indebted for the support of that 
rJlquc to the omnipotent influence of a gentleman Avho aspires to 
a reelection to the Senate of the Uiiited States, and Avho is pre- 
sumed to have some reasonable hopes, that the members of the 
State Legislature from the 4th District, in Avhich Judge Dunbar 
is such a favorite, Avill be disposed to show themselves grateful for 
the compliment paid to their sympathies, and for the attention 
shown to their local interests. 

What Avas Avorse, a presentiment settled over the whole city, that 
the most fraudulent means Avould be resorted to, in order to secure 
the election of the congressional nominee, and that also of mem- 
bers of the Legislature pledged in favor of the pretensions of the 
well known indivi<lual who so ardently covets the prolongation of 



8 

the tenure of his senatorial seat at Washington, and whose name 
had been so nnfortimately, and perhaps so unjustly, connected 
with a stupendous fraud alleged to have been committed in the 
Parish of Plaquemines, in the Presidential election of 1844. But, 
whether these surmises were well founded or not, and whether 
great injustice Avas done or not to the persons suspected, is not now 
the question. I merely assert the fact, that the public mind was 
extensively agitated by the prognostication of monstrous outrages 
against the elective franchise, and readily came to the conclusion, 
that immense sums of money would bo spent from a certain quar- 
ter, in furtherance of one domincoriiig, unscrupulous and all 
crushing ambition . 

Thus stood matters in New Orleans, when, on the 2oth of Octo- 
ber, the judges of election were, it was thought, illegally appointed 
by the Boai-d of Assistant Aldermen, which was supposed to be 
entirely under the thumb of the dreaded iafiutnce, instead of 
having been chosen by the joint action of that hodj, and of the 
Board of Aldermen, which was knoAvn not to be liable to the 
same objection. This circumstance strengthened the rumors that 
were afloat, but as I understand that this question is to be judicially 
settled, I shall abstain from commenting on its merits. Suspicion, 
however, grew into conviction, when it was ascertained that all 
the judges of election, secretaries, &c., were on one side — nay — on 
that side of the political horizon from which some strange wind 
was expected to bloAv. It Avas natural for the public to infer from 
an exhibition of tactics which were without a precedent in the 
annals of party warfare, that some master spirit was aiming at 
uncommon results. We shall soon see whether the popular instinct 
was at fault. 

On the 4th of Novcmiter, three days previous to the election, I 
took the occasion to say, in an address to the pilots at the Balizo 
and the South- West Pass, published in several of the papers of 
this city : " It is the boast of Democracy that its mission is to 
reform abuses every where, (among us at least,) and I therefore 
acted consistently with the doctrine of the party, Avhen I refused 
to submit my name to a Convention, which public opinion reproba- 
ted as being the complacent creature of a fcAV leaders, and not 
the expression of the popular v/ill. Admitting that the reverse 
was the truth, none Avill dare deny that public opinion Avas obsti- 
nately blind to it, and that some degree of respect was due to the 
only sovereignty Ave recognise, even Avhen falling into so fatal an 
error. If twelve respectable men eoidd have been found in the 
whole District, willing to record it under their own signatures and 
on their honor, to be their sincere conviction that the Convention 
had not been so packed as to secure the votes of the majority in 
favor of any individual designated by half a score of rulers, I 
would not now stand before you as an independent candidate." 



i 



This seemed to rOvany a very bold and hazardous assertion, and 
the public expected, -when I thus tlirevv the gauntlet, that it would 
be taken up, and that such an opp(u-tuiiity Avould f^hully be seized 
upon, to drive nie out of" tlic position l)C'hinil Avhich 1 had entrenched 
myself, by recording, iindcr the signatiur and on the honor of 
twelve respectable men, that they believed the Cunventlon not to have 
been a mere instrument in the hands of a few. From the pro- 
found silence observed on that occasion, and which was understood 
as a tacit aciiuicscenec, the puldic could not but draw the conclu- 
sion : 1st. That the Convention had been packed. 2d. That the 
congressional nominee was not the representative of the Demo- 
cratic party, but of a handful of men, for their own selfish pur- 
poses, whetiier he consented to it or not ; and, 3d. That extraor- 
dinary engines would be used to prevent a defeat which was more 
than jirobablc, and which would annihilate forever that squad of 
leaders whose domination was the cause of so much complaint. 
The masses frequently arrive at the knowledge of great truths, as 
it were by intuition, and without stopping to analyze the causes 
of their belief, or impressions. But the philosopher is bound to 
proceed by the legitimate and unexceptionable channel of either 
logical or mathematical demonstration. 

Thus, in the Presidential election of 1848, there were 4827 
votes polled in the 1st and 3d Municipalities, 4452 in the Presi- 
dential election in November, 1852, and 4591 at the Governor's 
election in December of the same year — giving, from November to 
December, an increase of 139 votes — which are very easily ac- 
counted for by the fact, that a good many of our citizens are still 
absent in November; and the very sameness of result at the 
ballot box, within the short interval of one month, shows that the 
vote can be relied on as correct, and that it was about the real vote 
of those two Municipalities at the time. From the preceding 
numbers what was the vote to be expected on the 7th of November. 
1853 ? It is well known that the city had been lately decimated 
by the most frightful epidemic, and it would be a lo^v calculation 
to estimate the number of voters who died, at GOO, in the 1st and 
8d Municipalities, and of those still absent on the 7th of Novem- 
ber at 200, and this would give a decrease of 800. Admitting, on 
the other hand, an increase of 200 from the legally naturalized, 
in the 1st and 3d Municipalities, since the epidemic, and suppos- 
ing that it very nearly counterbalances the number of absentees, 
we cannot be taxed with exaggeration when we set down at 600 
tlic decrease of voters in the 1st and 3d Municipalities, since 1852. 
Hence is it not statistically demonstrated, that the number o^'' 
voters, in November, 1853, could not have exceeded 4000 at most'. 
What was the number polled ? 5990 I — giving an increase in thr 
year of about 2000 votes ! This speaks for itself. The irauu 
stands revealed in all its native deformity. 

B 



10 

There is however one green spot in that black and festering 
mass of corruption. It is the town of Algiers opposite New Or- 
leans. Its citizens are said to be systematically opposed to fraud 
and to have attempted its prevention on every occasion. The 
statistics of the votes of that town, now the terminus of one of 
the most magnificent railroads contemplated in this State, Avill 
therefore throw much light on this question. Thus, in the Presi- 
dential election of 1848, it gave 281 votes, 222 in the presidential 
election of November, 1852 — 224 in the Governor's election which 
took place a month after, and 170 votes in the last election, on 
the 7th of November, 1853 — showing a decrease of more than 
one-fourth ! Yet it is admitted that the town of Algiers has been 
comparatively far more prosperous, and has been increasing much 
faster in jDopulation, than New Orleans in the aggregate. Why 
therefore should we not be permitted to apply the same propor- 
tionate rate of decrease, in the number of voters, to the 1st and 
3d Municipalities, which are acknowledged to be in a state of con- 
sumptive decline ? And if we even keep short of it, and put 
down the decrease of votes in the 1st and 3d Municipalities at 
only 1000, instead of 1147, as we ought, if we took the last 
gubernatorial vote as the datum, and the last as well as the pre- 
cedent vote of Algiers as the criterion of decrease, we shall find 
that the total vote of the two Municipalities ought not to have 
been more than about 3591. At any rate, it could not have ex- 
ceeded 4000 as I have stated above, with the allowance of the 
most liberal calculation. Bat, as Junius once said: I will not 
recall the charitable donation. Still it leaves an unexplained in- 
crease of 1990 votes. The demon of fraud himself could not 
therefore, on this occasion, have the supernatural effrontery of 
denying his intervention in human affairs. He is detected with 
the mainour, in the very act of felony. He stands self convicted, 
and he had better put a bold face on it, as suits his character, and 
openly boast of — rather than sneakingly attempt to conceal — his 
infernal triumph. He stands self-convicted^ I say ; and how could 
it be otherwise, when, even setting aside these damning statistics, 
thousands of witnesses, aghast at a degree of audacity so barefaced 
and shameless as to look like a portentous novelty, saw furniture 
carts, loaded with human lumber, and running in every direction, 
by the dozen, and full speed, with the same men who had received 
the mandate to vote four or five times at every poll, and who 
obeyed their instructions with exemplary fidelity. I throw a veil 
over other transactions which are too revolting to be exposed to 
the public gaze, and which, were they set forth in the mildest form 
that mercy could give to them, would still be looked upon, out of 
this city, not as realities, but as the monstrous inventions of a 
diseased imagination. 

Out of the 3591 votes, or thereabout, which could be legally 



11 

polled in the 1st and 3d Municipalities, I obtained 2082, and 2659* 
in the whole district, under the most unfavorable circumstances, 
as every one knows. Running as an independent candidate, I 
could not gather round me any of the energies and means of in- 
fluence derived from the political organization of a party, and I 
stood alone, with my feeble personal resources, with no help from 
any of the election committees without which it is thought that no 
struggle of the kind can be successfully conducted, Avith no golden 
attractions to present to a certain category of voters, and even 
with no one at the Polls, to prevent my tickets from being lacerated. 
Nevertheless, as I have said, I obtained 2082 votes in the 1st and 
3d Municipalities. I furthermore obtained a majority of 42 votes 
in the Parish of St. Bernard, and could have exulted at a result 
of the like nature, in the Parish of Phupiemines, which is so 
thoroughly Democratic, and so celebrated for the uncompromising 
zeal of its political creed, if the Sheriff had not thought proper to 
close his official returns within forty eight hours, without waiting, 
or sending, for the election return of a precinct, not more than 
thirty miles distant from his place of residence. Whether he 
acted legally, or not, on that occasion, is a question Avhich, I under- 
stand, is to be submitted to a judicial investigation. Be it as it 
may, by the suppression of the return of that precinct, the major- 
ity is thrown on the other side, but does not exceed eight votes, 
notwithstanding the organized and swelled up 264 votes of the 
pilots, which were cast in a lump for my adversary, without a soli- 
tary straggler being permitted to run away from their Avell dis- 
ciplined ranks. Under these circumstances, Avhelher I am elected 
or not b}'' the legal voters of the district, is a question Avhich I 
leave to the public, and to the conscientious examination of the 
hiffh minded and honorable Judo;e Dunbar himself. 

I now call the attention of the people of the State to the follow- 
ing synopsis of the votes cast in the 1st and 3d Municipalities, at 
every congressional election since 1847. In that year. La Sere 
and Montegut running — 3960 votes ; in 1849, La Sere and Jack- 
son— 5256 ; in 1851, St. Martin and Hagan— 5260 ; in 1853, 
Gayarre and Dunbar — 5990. Be it remarked, merely as a matter 
of innocent curiosity, that, in the three last congressional elections, 
the aggregate vote in the 1st and 3d Municipalities, was greater 
than in the Presidential or Gubernatorial elections which are gen- 
erally so fiercely disputed. Certainly there must be something at 
the bottom of this mysterious well. Will truth ever come out of 
its depth ? But to the point. Deducting from the very full vote 
of 1851, in the Congressional election, only 600 for the decrease 
of voters in consequence of the reasons alleged in my precetling 



* Without cnuntin;? the votes ■w^liich I received in the precinct whose return was 
not waited for by the Sheriff, in the Parish of riaquemines. 



12 

remarks, we find 4660 as the probable vote of 1853, and, instead 
of 600, deducting 1000, whicli ninetj-nine individuals in New 
Orleans out of a hundred will say is the number approximating 
more to the truth, as demonstrated by taking, for our criterion, the 
decrease of voters in the flourishing town of Algiers, where no 
fraud was committed, and we have : 4260 — showing in the one 
hypothesis, a spurious vote of 1330, and in the other, 1730, by 
substracting, alternately, either 4660, or 4260, from the 5990 
votes thrown into the ballot box on tlie 7th of November, 1853. 
So — on whatever basis the calculations be conducted, be it on the 
last Presidential, Gubernatorial, or Congressional vote, the same, 
or very nearly the same, mathematical results are obtained. What- 
ever be the test by which the equation is tried, and the rules by 
which it is worked, the same algebraical solution drops from the 
calculator's pen. Whether the tenure of a seat in Congress on 
such terms is reconcilable with the feelings of honorable gentle- 
men, is a question which it would be idle to discuss, or the de- 
monstrations derived from the universally acknowledged authority 
of statistics, which are undisputed and undisputable, are no longer 
to be resorted to and to be relied upon. 

But whether Judge Dunbar or myself would have been elected 
to a seat in the Congress of the United States, if a stupendous 
and unparalelled fraud had not been perpetrated, I consider to be 
a matter of little importance, and the settling of that question 
would not justify me in going into all these details, and in laying 
such an address before the people of the State. Let it be well 
understood that I have not one word to say about private griev- 
ances, and no personal redress to seek, but, as a citizen, bound by 
hereditary ties to the land of my birth, I deem it my duty to de- 
nounce as loudly as I can, the most flagitious, daring and danger- 
ous outrage that ever was committed against the peace and dignity 
of the State and against the security of those institutions which 
are the palladium of her prosperity. 

It is a fact susceptible of mathema,tical demonstration, as I have 
shown, and of public notoriety, as every respectable inhabitant of 
New Orleans will vouch for, that, out of the 5990 votes polled in 
the 1st and 3d Municipalities, two thousand were spurious. What 
occurred in the 2d Municipality and in the district which was 
formerly called the city of Lafayette was equally nefarious in all 
its details and hell black in its complexion, so that about 4000 
fraudulent votes were manufactured, for the whole of New Orleans, 
out of the 13,102 received ; and this result was obtained at the 
ballot box, after a diminution in our population of about twenty 
thousand souls produced by death since the last Gubernatorial 
election, and of at least ten thousand, caused by the absence of 
those that had fled from the late epidemic, and had not yet re- 
turned! 13,102 votes in November, 1853, when only 9604 could 



18 

be found at the Governor's election, in December, 1852 ! It is 
well known that this result was come to, not by producini]; at the 
Polls four thousand men, who could not be thus marshalled up, 
because they did not exists but by multiplying five or six hundred 
stipendiaries, who were rapidly conveyed from one Poll to another, 
and wlio voted as often as it was thought proper by their chiefs. 
I deem it supererogatory to relate some of the strange scenes that 
were witnessed on that memorable day — the 7 th of November, 
1853 — nor am I willing to ascertain who were the evil doers. 
There, lies the corpus delicti — the bodily evidence of murder. I 
denounce the crime, the repetition of which it is the interest of 
society to prevent, but it would not suit me to point out the criminal, 
if I knew him, to the executioner. I Avould leave it to those who 
may be clothed with the proper legal authority, to walk up to the 
murderer, and say to him : th(Tc is blood on thy face. 

But, with the emphasis of deep sorrow and with the energy of 
honest indignation, I do call the attention of the people of the 
State to the following facts : incredible as it may sound, one-fourth 
of the whole vote polled in New Orleans, at the recent election 
held on the 7th of November, was notoriously spurious ! Four 
thousand fraudulent votes can be cast in this city ! This can be 
done, has been done, and may be done again at the bidding of a 
few individuals; and, as from the ballot box springs the supreme 
law of the land, and its government, in the shape of a constitu- 
tion, and by the process of never ceasing legislation, as well as 
by the election of State and Municipal officers, these few men are 
not only the supreme masters of New Orleans, but also of the 
State, without even incurring the dangers which always attend an 
open despotism. When and where was any society or community 
in a more dangerous situation ? If such a state of demoralization 
is not put a stop to, what awful couse(iuenccs will it not produce ! 
What do Ave see already ? Let him who wislies to be informed 
listen to that voice which may ])e heard in the street, in tlie mar- 
ket place, in the public square, in the hall of office, in the open 
saloon, in the chamber of privacy — every Avhere : " We are rotten 
to the core ", it exclaims. " Our free institutions exist but in 
theory or semblance — the practice belies thom. What is the use 
of going to the ballot box, when it opens or closes its mouth, only 
according to the dictates of a Venitian oligarchy, and when an 
honest man has but one vote, and a rogue ten ? " Nay — the 
feeling of despair is carried so far. that our most respectable citi- 
zens consider it fruitless to makt the slightest effi^rt to redeem 
themselves from the disgraceful bo idage, which they think beyond 
remedy, and you may hear them say with the deepest and most 
humiliating dejection : " Our only policy is to leave the sons of 
scoundrelism and bribery to be masters of the field without oppo- 
sition, and our only hope is, that they may tear themselves to 



14 

pieces, when tliey come to the division of the spoils, and that we 
may profit by their quarrels." Ay — we have come to this — we, 
the descendants of the patriots of 1776, and the possessors of the 
heritage they bequeathed to us, have sunk lower than the stricken 
deer who may entertain some faint hope that his blood may cease 
to flow from his torn entrails, whilst the hounds that lapped it are 
fighting among themselves for its luscious drops. 

But we are not to suffer alone from this state of degradation, 
and the infection will spread from this sink of putrefaction to the 
most distant regions. "What" ! — says the poor exile who fled 
from the scoui'ge of despotism, and came to our shore, broken 
hearted, but with the hope that his drooping spirits would revive 
at the sight of our virtues and the harmonious working of our 
institutions : "Is this the model of a republic ? Is this self gov- 
ernment ! — the popular government ! the people's adminis- 
tration ! — established under the most favorable circumstances, 
with the smile of heaven and earth upon it, and when it has to 
contend with no other obstacles than those which arise from the im- 
perfections of our human nature ! Have we been all this time, 
in Europe, indulging in wild dreams which can never be converted 
into realities ! Is ^7;?'sthe state of things we would produce by sub- 
verting existing governments ! Is it to give power — unshakable — 
uncurtailable power — apparently, in the name of the people, but, 
in truth, without their action, consent, or cooperation whatever, 
and through corrupt means, to ignorance, rascality and effrontery ! 
If we must have, by the decrees of fate, a foot on our breast, 
better the satin clad one of the prince or the queen than that of 
the scavenger, enclosed in its dirty, straw stuffed wooden shoe. It 
weighs and stinks less. Better be the property of the monarch 
with an ancestry of a thousand years — of him who was heralded 
into this world, at his birth, with all the pomp of royalty, than be 
the hewer of wood and the drawer of water for the mushroon 
nabob cradled in a tallow tub, or be the unfed dog of the keeper 
of a common stew, whose body and soul reek of the perfumes of 
his daily occupations." I affirm that I have heard these despond- 
ing remarks from the most enlightened of those enthusiastic 
foreigners who have sought a refuge and a home among us. But, 
although grieved to the very depths of my sovd, I take a more 
encouraging view of the subject, and I think that, like the Bo- 
mans of old, a true patriot ought never to despair of the republic. 
In the very excess of an evil there may be found a cure for the 
evil itself. The principles of new vitality and reproduction are 
discernible even in putrified matter, and we are promised resurrec- 
tion in death. 

It is related that a catholic who, some centuries ago, visited 
Rome, drew confirmation of his faith from the very extent of the 
corruption which surrounded the papal seat, and came to the con- 



15 

elusion, that a religion which had so long resisted and outlived the 
eifects of so much perversity, must be of divine origin. Let 
us apply the same mode of reasoning to our institutions, and 
look at them Avith the same persevering faith ; but it is time that 
the celestial spear of the archangel should drive away the demon 
that has entered the holy precincts where is planted the tree of 
liberty, if we wish to rest long under its shade and to extend it 
over mankind. 

This State has a solemn duty to perform towards herself, towards 
the whole American Confederacy, and towards the world. It is 
to punish the perpetrators of the late outrage, whoever they may 
be, if they can be discovered — an outrage, whose consequences 
may be so great and so extensively felt — or, at least, to prevent 
the guilty from reaping any advantage from their own misdeeds ; 
and next, to adopt the most efficacious means to foreclose for ever 
the repetition of such a crime. As an humble member of the 
commonwealth, I have acted the part which conscience, education, 
and perhaps the cherished recollection of departed Avorth, imposed 
upon me. It would be Quixotic to go farther. I therefore retire 
from the contest at peace with myself, and I would fain hope — 
with others. 

I have, in parting, one Avord to say to those who aifcct to pity 
me as a lunatic, or as an infatuated and inexperienced fool, totally 
deprived of all knowledge of the world, for having, by the course 
I have pursued, turned my back on the avenue to lucrative office or 
political honors. I wish them to understand that I am grateful for 
the expression of this feeling of commiseration, but that I am not 
a fit subject on which to bestow such a boon, because I have already 
occupied in life, and may again occupy, positions which, to others, 
I know, would have been the cause of the keenest torture, although 
they were to me the source of the most exquisite enjoyment. I 
am not, therefore, in reality, so much of a lunatic as they think, 
and I am not so deficient in what they are pleased to call the 
knoivledgc of the ivorld, as not to be sensible that, in the estima- 
tion of the common herd of bipeds that people this earth, glorifi- 
cation is due to success, and contumely to defeat. That is the first 
impulse, it is true, of our race ; but it is not the less true, that there 
is in its nature something by which it is soon redeemed from its 
ignoble instincts, and which, surely, if slowly, brings forth the 
hour of reaction ; and we know that many of the names which 
have remained embalmed in human recollection have not invaria- 
bly been borne by those whom success attended in life. The gold 
which rewarded the betraying kiss of the Jewish apostate was 
success at the time. Gold is still success, and remains the idol of 
mankind. The transfixed hands and feet, the bleeding breast, the 
thorn crowned head, which hung on the wooden cross of Golgotha, 
amidst the sneers and shouts of the rabble — that was defeat in the 



eye of the world. But that awful emboclimeut ef defeat and 
misery — what has it become ever since? — the living God whose 
sway spreads every day ! Then let it be recorded, in justice to 
mankind, that, if it worships the gold of perdition, that once 
bought " the potter's field, to biu-y strangers in," it has also its ado- 
ration for the intrinsically worthless wooden cross, which is the 
emblem of sacrifice and salratic n. The one, I say, is the acknowl- 
edged idol — the other — the God. Be it so. Let every man to 
his taste, to his choice and to his creed. 

I cannot close this address, without eagerly availing myself of 
this opportunity to express my warmest thanks to those of my 
fellow citizens who, with 2659 votes, have spontaneously given me 
so flattering a proof of their esteem and confidence. When I con- 
sider the quality, as well as the number, of the votes thus obtained, 
and the adverse circumstances under which that support was ten- 
dered me, I confess myself elated with a feeling of pride, which, 
I trust, is too pure to be sinful. To those who so highly favored 
me, I am gratified to declare that I remain a willing and grateful 
debtor. But if I relinquish the ambition of serving them in a 
public capacity, I do not forget, and I beg them to keep in mind, 
that there are, in private life, pursuits of at least equal dignity 
and of as much comprehensive usefulness. In the shades of re- 
tirement, I shall joyfully resume those labors which I had under- 
taken for the benefit of my fellow citizens, and which, perhaps, 
may ultimately redound to the credit of my native State and secure 
some honest fame for myself, without my obtaining the previous 
consent of any election jobbers, without reverentially bowing to 
intrigue and corruption and embracing degradation in its worst 
form, without assimilating myself to those worms which are engen- 
dered and creep in the gutters and sewers of every commonwealth, 
without defiling the purity of our institutions, without abdicating 
the independence of the citizen, and without sacrificing the char- 
acter of the American gentleman. 

CHARLES GAYARRB. 

New Orleans, November 23, 1853. 



The author of this pamphlet believes that every assertion contained in it is 
strictly true, and can be judicially proved. He invites the public and those of his 
fellow citizens vrho may take a personal and direct interest in the matter, 
to point out to him any error into which he may have fallen, because there is no 
other occasion on which the duty of retraction would be more joyfully submitted to, 
and the work of correction more readily vmdertaken, by one whose most ardent 
wish is to palliate, or even conceal if possible, whilst attempting to cm-e, those 
deformities which disgrace the object of his patriotic attachment and filial piety. 



